Ashes of Humanity
by InsomniaWaffles
Summary: The experience of a teenage boy that is thrusted into a world that is unknown to him. He makes friends, and loses them along his struggle to survive in the wasteland. -This is a realistic/dark take on the Fallout universe, if gore/violence offends you, please don't read- This is a work in progress more to come! :D read and review please?
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

FIRE

A bright light...that's the first of many things I saw that fateful day. The lights were those of a fire alarm that was hanging on the wall of my room. I immediately sprung out of my minuscule twin sized bed, sending my cyan bed sheets sailing to the stone cold metal floor. With two massive strides I was in front of my red dresser. I flung open the drawers and grabbed a dark blue colored jumpsuit. I unzipped the zipper lining the chest and stepped through the legs of the jump suit. I then proceeded to pull the sleeves over my arms and on my chest. I started to pull the zipper towards my chin, with each inch that it gained it made the jumpsuit tighten on my back.

I turned to my left and grabbed my baseball bat that I had as a child, the one my father had given to me on my tenth birthday. Bat in hand; I made my way towards the door. I stopped at the door and listened to the sounds creeping through the air vents that linked my room and the hall outside of it. I could hear the vicious crackle of the flames resounding throughout the metal corridors of the vault along with the screams and pleas for help coming from the other citizens.

I pondered whether or not I should leave my coffin of steel and rust. Finally I had my mind made; I clenched my hand into a fist and punched the control panel beside my door. At first the door sputtered and only cracked about an inch or so, but after I hit the panel again, it shot open with a "whoosh!" I stepped out into the hall way and the first thing I witnessed was the woman that was living in the room next to me.

I knew this woman to be epileptic because I had heard her significant other trying to calm her from the frequent seizers she had during the night. As I witnessed the woman running down the steel tube, I noticed something, the strobe lights on the fire alarm. Fearing for the worst, I tried to stop the woman by raising my hand and saying "Wait!", but I was interrupted. The woman's eyes made contact with the strobe lights; this caused the woman to be thrown into a violent seizer. The woman tripped on her feet and was tossed through the air like a rag doll; she landed at the top of the stairs to the right of me and continued her crash course by tumbling down them on to a pile of charcoal black, flaming rubble. I watched as her crisp body started to drag itself back up the stairs.

I looked to her and said "Oh god, I'm so sorry!" and continued to run for my life down for the the remainder of the hall until I came to a corner where I met face to face with my childhood best friend, James. As he looked at me and said "Follow me, I know a way out of here!" my vision started to fade away as a piece of paper would if you were to set fire to the center of it. Following that was darkness...


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

TWELVE HOURS LATER

I woke to another bright light and thought to myself "am I going to keep having this nightmare?" My fears went up in smoke as I started to feel the gravel I was laying on dig into my back. I pulled my head up and shook it a little, my eyes started to clear. I stood up as my vision was blasted with a stream of light, groaning as I stretched after the much needed rest. As I looked around I began to piece together where I was, it was a cave. It brought back memories of when I was younger and would look out of the windows of the Vault that overhung a cavern. I would ask my father often what the outside world was like and he always said that maybe one day we would find out. But when I was 15 my father became Ill with radiation poisoning and was placed on his death bed by the doctors inside of those stone-cold steel walls. I never forgave those doctors, and not too long ago, I watched them become nothing more than charred meat and brittle bones.

I decided that I was done taking a trip down memory lane and zoned back into the present. I looked around and noticed that behind me was a huge steel cog shaped door with the number one hundred in the middle of it. I automatically assumed that I was formerly a resident of Vault 100. In front of me was a long pathway covered with stone on all sides. This pathway leads to a wooden door. Some of the planks were missing on the door that allowed light to flow through, allowing me to see some of the rest of the cave that was dimly lit.

Between the wooden planks was a kind of wire that probably strengthened the integrity of the door, I started to approach the battered wooden door, one step at a time. Every step I took echoed throughout the cave and vibrated back into my eardrum. I was finally at the door; I started having second thoughts as I grabbed the wooden doorknob. I began to push against the door and I felt the resistance of the nuclear wind on the other side struggling to keep the door shut. I threw my shoulder into the door and fell through it like a hot knife through butter. My haste sent me tumbling to the warm ground. I had my eyes shut as I stood up but the immense light flooded through my eyelids.

I opened my eyes and was attacked by an overwhelming light unlike anything I had experienced inside of the Vault. Once my vision was back to normal I noticed what the landscape was like, it was Hell. The ground was a light brown color; chunks of white rock littered the terrain. I had never seen anything like this before. I remember seeing pictures of the outside world in the Vaults museum section. What I had seen was towering structures of stone and glass, but all I can see now is what remains of an ancient civilization that once was. Several mounds of rubble dotted the horizon as far as I could see. I heard something scurrying around in the cave I had just come out of.

Fearing for the worst I looked around the ground for something to fend off attackers with. Finally I found a decently sized rock and picked it up and held it on my shoulder. I got into position at the side of the door and waited to strike. I heard sounds of struggle on the other side of the door. Suddenly without warning, he door flew open and a figure fell out of the doorway onto the ground. I suddenly came to my senses and dropped the rock and hurried over to the downed figure. The figure on the ground was James.

I was glad to see him and I quickly helped him to his feet. "You're still alive I see." I remarked to him "Yeah, good to see you too." he replied in a hushed tone. "We don't have time for pleasantries, James." I scowled "We have to find shelter before night fall, any idea where we should go?" James pondered the question for a moment and said "How the hell should I know, I've never been out here before!" I decided we should head towards the horizon where the rubble was. We started down the hill and towards the rubble.


	3. Chapter 3

After about an hour or so of travel, James and I came across the ruins of an old city.

"Hello?" I called out, "is anyone there?"

I could hear murmuring in the distance, bouncing off the stone walls like a basketball. I looked down the street we were on, the road went on for about 100 feet or so then split in a way where it made the road in the shape of a "T" at the end of the road there was a building with blue double doors.

On each side of the doors there were boarded up windows. At this time I suddenly noticed the murmuring was louder, as if it were no farther than 20 feet. I could faintly make out the sentences the voice was shouting,

"Don't let that bastard get away!" the voice called.

The voice was now accompanied with sounds of shuffling and ragged breaths. I could see the muzzle flashes of a gun illuminate the inside of the building at the end of the street. I looked at James; he was looking back at me with a worried expression across his face. "We have to hide now!" I hissed "the question is 'where'"

James suddenly sprang to life and sprinted to an apartment building across the street. Before I realized it, James had kicked in the door to the apartment building and told me "This place looks abandoned, come on!". I followed him as he climbed up the crumbling stairs to the rooftop. After four floors of climbing the stairs, we found the door to the roof and opened it. I took my position at the edge of the roof and continued to watch the scene fold out forty feet below us.

The two blue double doors of the building blast open. What emerged out of them was a man whose skin was so dirty that it looked like he had rubbed motor oil on himself. The man had very ragged clothing and his hair cut close to his scalp but I saw something out of the ordinary about him.

"Hey James," I motioned for him to come to the edge I was at and told him "what's that thing around that mans neck?"

James shrugged his shoulder and said " Some kind of collar or tracking device maybe?" we continued to watch the man run out of the building, trip on the sidewalk, and fall on his face. Shortly after, another man walked out of the building and over to the man on the ground. The man from the building walked over to the one on the ground and spit on the back of his head while he was on the asphalt. The standing man began to kick the other over and over in the stomach, chest, and face causing him to bleed from multiple places over his body. Finally the standing man ceased his kicking and looked over his shoulder towards the building he had been in previously.

James and I looked too and saw a middle-aged woman standing in the darkness beyond the double doors. She was struggling to hold back two children. The owner turned his attention away from her and directed it towards the slave again. Then I understood what was happening here, these people were slaves.

"Maybe that little whore wife of yours and her two little filthy brats will take this as a learning experience". He proceeded to reach into his pocket on the khaki's he was wearing and fumbled around for a few seconds. I took this time to get a better look at him. The slave's owner was wearing a blue sweater with white dotted diamonds on the front in a horizontal row across his chest and on his back was a black sniper rifle with several spots of the paint missing, exposing the silver underlining.

The owner had found what he was looking for in his pocket, a small white remote. He gave the slave one last harsh blow to the stomach and stood over him and chuckled loudly as he turned around and began to walk back to the building with the blue double doors. As he was walking, he held the hand that the remote was clasped in across his chest and over his opposite shoulder. Then he pushed the button. The slave's collar exploded around his neck, decapitating him in the process. Thick chunks of his head fell with a wet plop upon impact. Bits of grey matter landed on the owner's sweater, to which he regarded with a grunt and flicked it off of himself.

"Hey asshole, clean this mess up" he motioned at a burly man who was walking towards him from the street going away from the building with the blue double doors " take the body around back and burn it!" I then turned my attention back towards the double doors where the woman holding the two kids was before. The woman was still there. She was on her knees wailing and pounding her fists against the ground. One other man who I could see from the apartments rooftop that was inside of the double doors. The man went to the woman "Alright bitch, get back to your cell or your little brats are next". The man in the khakis and sweater entered the double doors again and told the two guards on both sides of the doors to close them. The doors slammed shut with a loud bang that echoed throughout the street.


	4. Chapter 4

I wanted to help the woman, but I couldn't do it alone. I needed James' help, not only that, but a weapon as well. "We should look around the apartment building for something we could use as a weapon". James nodded and headed over to the rooftop's door and opened it and stuck his head in. "It's clear, come on."

I headed over to him and swung the door open again and followed down the stairs after James. We both stopped on the third floor, the one right below the roof. We started by going into the room right across from the stairwell leading to the roof. Before we went in that the room number was 304, and I guess that signified that it was the forth room on the third floor because I found it preposterous that this apartment building would have 300 rooms. We entered the room and I was greeted by complete darkness.

After a minute or two my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could now make out something in the corner. I walked closer to it; it was a large mass with a blocky shape to it. I could see corners of something poking the in various places around the figure. I reached my hand out and touched it. It was a cloth feeling, suddenly it made sense to me and I grabbed the cloth and started to bunch it up by grabbing it with one hand and passing it to the other and repeating this procedure until I had a large mass of cloth pressing against my chest.

It was at this time that James walked over to me and asked "What'd you find?" I could see three boxes, two on the bottom and one in the middle of the two. "Let's find out" I said as I blew the gritty excess air out of my mouth. The box on the very top was the first one I opened. Inside of it was a folded piece of paper. I picked it up and unfolded it and walked into the hallway lit by the light from the rooftops door. The letter said:  
Welcome on behalf of Vault-Tec to come to Vault 103. This vault will protect you from the apocalypse we all know is coming, but don't worry, because when that time comes, you'll be in the safest place you can be!

The paper trailed off into unintelligible words about living in a vault. James instantly blurted out "Hey weren't we in a vault?" I pondered the question for a second and thought of the consequences of my answer, "No" I said. James dropped the subject after seeing that it could only go so far, and then continued to search the room for more supplies. James and I walked back into the room where the three boxes were. I removed the box that was on the top of the stack and put it on the dusty ground and turned to the next box.

There was writing on the lid of the next box but was obscured by a veil of thick dust. I wiped the dust off with my hand, revealing the underlying words. The top of the box said the words Vault-Tec in yellow letters and had a boy that had a suit similar to the ones James and I had on." I thought you said we weren't from a vault Rob" James said with concern. "We aren't, it's just a coincidence that he is wearing the same colors as us" I said in an irritated voice showing that I didn't want to talk about our now ruined home.

He was drawn in a cartoonish manner and had blonde messy hair. His eyes were black buttons on his face. His hand was raised in a 'thumbs up' gesture and he was smiling as if he had just won first place in a race. I took the boxes top off and dropped the lid to the floor with a metallic crash. My face lit up when I saw the contents of the box. There was a pile of wrist mounted computers known as "Pip-Boys". I knew the things were distributed to most vaults before the war, but in vault 100, there had been a shortage of Pip-Boys given to the vault, and only the people deemed important were given one.

I reached into the box and picked up one of the Pip-Boys that didn't have a crack on the screen and wiped the dust off of it. I turned it over and found the clamp that held the wrist strap together and put it over my arm, just above my hand. Immediately after I placed it on my arm, the wrist clamp jerked close, seconds after I was greeted by a screen on the Pip-Boy that said: "The Pip-Boy 3000, the future of America" in bold green letters with a black background. The screen faded out and was replaced by a screen the said "location" with a text box underneath it and underneath that was an option that said "use GPS to find location". Since I didn't know exactly where we were I chose the "use GPS to find location" option. A loading screen flashed on my Pip-Boy that said "finding location, please wait". In a minute or two, a screen appeared that said "Congratulations! You have successfully survived the initial blast, and are now a citizen of the Virginia/D.C. area; the map for this area will now appear on your Vault-Tec standard issued Pip-Boy 3000".

After reading the text, a map of Virginia flew across the screen, and zipped to a place called "Open Arms Plaza" I guessed this was that slaver camp down the street from us. About a centimeter away from Open Arms was an arrow facing away from the location on the map. I started to turn towards the slaver building while looking at my Pip-Boys map. The arrow on the map was spinning at the same rate I was. I decided it was time to stop and give James his Pip-Boy too. I reached into the box and grabbed the one that was in best condition and handed it carefully to James. The same events that happened to me happened to him as well, the clamping of the wrist strap, location setting, and the map.

We screwed around with our Pip-Boys for 15 more minutes and I finally turned to James and said "We should get out of here." we briefly looked around the room and altogether we found a rusty lead pipe." Take this, you were a lot better at baseball back home than me." I told James and he agreed with a nod of agreement.

I suddenly noticed the window that was boarded up on the inside with fairly new looking boards. I went over to them and started to pull at one of the boards. The board suddenly ripped off with a loud sound of wood creaking and glass breaking. I fell backwards and fell into a couple of boxes that, in turn crashed to the ground like a cymbal in a parade.

I began to hear shouting from down the street and knew that they had heard me, they knew we were here. I quickly got up and ran out into the hall with James following close behind me. In my hand was the nail board I had just gotten, and James was wielding the lead pipe he found. We ran down to the first floor and to the back door of the apartment building. I ran to the door and started to throw myself into it and at first it wouldn't budge, but then it started to crack open, exposing the light outside. I continued to bash the door with my shoulder until it flew open and I was in a dark alleyway with sheets hanging from multiple fire escape ladders. The ground was littered with several rocks about the size of fifty cent pieces. James was panting from just running down the stairs of the apartment. He had the lead pipe in his hand at the ready. I heard one of the slavers shout "LET'S CHECK AROUND BACK!" I took my position at the corner of the alleyway and held my board in a baseball bat manner and waited to strike. The first slaver began to walk around the corner. I grabbed one of the many rocks that was on the ground and threw it across the street. I saw the slaver walk across the street to the rock. I sprinted towards him with my board ready. I got to where he was just as he was turning around and swung the board as hard as I could towards his hand, knocking his pistol out of his hand into the ground causing it to fire off a round into the brick wall behind me. I raised the board again and struck him in the neck. Blood began to pour out of the opening I had made and the slaver fell to the ground while gargling on his own blood. I took his pistol from the street and began to look in the satchel he had on. Inside was three 10mm pistol clips. I took the entire satchel off of him and put it over my shoulder then put the slavers pistol back in the satchel with the rest of the ammo. I ran to the corner that the slaver had originally come from. I took a peek around the corner. There were three slavers in front of the apartment building. About this time James had met up with me and I told him of the situation we were in. We decided that now was the time to use the pistol we had found. I took the slavers pistol out and showed it to James. I walked back around to the alley and picked up another rock and jogged back to James. I threw the rock as soon as I reached him, pulled out the pistol, and aimed down its sights. The slaver walked into my field of view and I lined my sights up with his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew out of the barrel of my gun and into the slavers head, splattering grey matter all over the wall in front of him. I took a step around the corner and started to fire on the other slavers. The two slavers were dispatched in less than 5 seconds, both from shots to the head. I turned to James and said "we should head to the slavers main base" he nodded and we started up the street towards the building. We got to the blue double doors without being noticed. I stopped after realizing what I had done, I had just taken another persons life, regardless if he deserved it, he was still human.

I hid the expression of fear on my face from James and continued into the building James slowly opened the doors and I pointed my gun into the darkness of the building. I saw a single guard turned away from the door with his back towards us. I put the pistol back in the satchel and started to crouch walk towards him. I pulled my nail board out and beat him over the head with it repeatedly. We continued to take out the remaining of the guards like this until we arrived at the slaves holding cells. There were small rooms with bars covering the doors and windows. Immediately after we entered the holding cells the slaves started begging for their freedom. "Stay quite while we find the keys" James said. It was about this time that the man with the khakis and the blue sweater walked in on the opposite side of the room."Well, well, well" he said "not only have you entered my home and killed all my friends, but you also plan to free my slaves, don't you?" I stared back at him "your friends were monsters and they had to be put down" I started, thoughts of me murdering the people outside filled my head, I'm no better than he is, "and I think you're outnumbered two to one, so you aren't in any position to be calling shots. So not only are we going to free these people, but you aren't going to do anything to stop us.". He stared down the corridor at James and I "And if I do try to stop you?" he asked in an egotistical fashion to which I replied "I'll personally kill you myself" he started to say something but James cut him off and asked "where are the keys to these cells?". He started to walk out of the room. He had been gone for about 30 seconds when at once the cells opened. The slaves ran out of the room and of the building. The man came back and said "okay the slaves are free. What more do you want? You're essentially killing them yourself by setting them free, they've no idea what to do out there, or the means to do anything if they did, but I guess that's on your conscience now". He headed out the door and walked into the sunset before James or I could ask him anymore about the situation. James and I watched him until we couldn't see him anymore. I suddenly remembered the woman from before and began to search the cells for her. I couldn't find her and assumed she'd been killed. I looked to James and we headed out. Back into the wasteland again.


End file.
